THROUGH JAPAN

Taranaki Daily News, 27 February 1935, Page 4

THROUGH JAPAN

RED CROSS CONFERENCE.

delegates astounded. A paper was tabled at the quarterly meeting of the South Taranaki Red Cross Council at Kaponga on -Thursday dealing with the : International , Red Cross Conference at Tokyo during October ot last year and referred to the splendid organisation of the Japanese. The .first day in Japan fouiid the party bewildered by the continuous consideration for their individual comfort and welfare. This day, they ultimately discovered, was but an introduction into the atmosphere and activity of a programme so extensive and thorough in its anticipation and detail that it was amazing. The unanimous opinion of the representatives from more than 50 countries who assembled at Tokyo was proof of the extraordinary efficiency and unselfishness of the Japanese Red Cross Society in organising the conference and treating all the delegates as if they were princes. The’whole of the 230 foreign delegates asserted it would be utterly impossible to organise in the near future another international Red Cross conference in any country of the world with such a giving spirit and pure motive and on such an immense and national scale. The president of the conference, Prince Tokugawa, evinced much interest in the newly formed national Red Cross Society in New Zealand, asking many questions in ah hour’s audience with one of the Dominion’s delegates.

A ruinous typhoon which swept the inland Sea and caused extensive devastation at Osaka provided the visiting delegates with one more practical illustration of the remarkable thoroughness with which the Japanese Red Cross responds effectively to the spirit of its responsibilities. Within 24 hours, 2000 Japanese Chapters had responded with such practical effect to meet the requirements of the situation that it was unnecessary to seek assistance outside their own organisation or even to require assistance from their own Government.